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Halloween: All Work and No Play Makes Students Dull People

Fall is depressing. The sun goes away – or, at least in California, it occasionally hides. School is starting all around the country; the general vibe amongst your friends is completely down; and there’s very little to look forward to outside of a disheartening school schedule resetting its batteries, ready to crush what little spirit you have left.

That’s why it’s helpful to have that very little outside of school to keep you from hating the daily grind. One thing that fall offers to look forward to is Halloween, which is probably one of the best days for a lot of college students. Now I hear what you’re saying: “You are dumb. What about all the other big holidays?” But, let’s think about this.

Some of the other major holidays are great, but there are certain restrictions placed on them that make Halloween unique in comparison. Christmas is a blast and the gifts are great, but the older you get, the overall thrill of Christmas decreases a bit. It’s also a time for spending with family, and while that has its perks, sometimes unwinding doesn’t involve sitting under a tree having your parents take pictures of you. (I mean, what’s the point if you can’t even put those pictures up on Facebook?) The same goes for Thanksgiving, which has similar restrictions on it.

But on Halloween, you can do damn near anything! Do you like parties involving shenanigans that you’ll be questioning for the rest of your life? Halloween parties are awesome – it’s some kind of combo of the costumes, music, costumes, food, decorations and/or any other bits of imagination.

You likely know someone throwing a Halloween party. If you don’t, hell, you could just put on a mask, walk into the noisiest place near wherever you live, and introduce yourself as John.

Everyone knows John.

Maybe you aren’t into partying and you miss the fun that you had when you were a kid. Well, you can also easily revisit pretty much everything that made Halloween fun back when our parents dropped us off from block to block to fill our stomachs with sugar. After all, is it really that childish to get free candy? We’re in college so you can attach the word “free” to practically anything and you’ll have my full undivided attention.

Plus, the older you get, the more cool ideas you get for Halloween costumes, and any excuse for a cool costume is fine by me. No longer are our brains limited by just superheroes, cartoons and video games – now we have an educated array of guises to take on. You could be an existential philosopher, the protagonist from some underrated indie flick, or some other near-unknown thing only you and a group of your homies are privy to.

If you’re a lady, you could even be a slutty nurse, or a slutty teacher, or a slutty superhero, or a slutty cartoon, or a slutty first lady, or even a slutty penguin.

And if you’d rather sit back and soak in the grand variety of intellectuals and slutty outfits, you could bring the trick-or-treat spirit to your humble abode by spooking it up, freaking out those who pass it. Halloween wouldn’t be Halloween if you didn’t see at least one child cry because you scared the crap out of him or her.

Yes, Halloween is awesome. Whether you’re outside painting the town red, or at a movie theater watching some slasher paint his walls red, there are so many things to do during Halloween that it’d make anyone giddy if they really soaked it in. You’re not going to have a chance to be this obnoxious again until New Year’s, and Halloween is a lot more creative than New Year’s anyway.

The real fright would be not taking advantage of all that fun. That’s enough to haunt my dreams. Oh, that and school. But let’s forget about the latter for a night.

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